Buried under the pile of “OMG, Grand Theft Auto V is the best selling thing ever sold!” stories this past week, was an announcement from Nintendo of America that Wii U sales in September were up more than 200% from their August levels. According to The Big N, and common sense, the two major reasons for the spike were the $50 price cut on September 20th and the release of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD.
The Wind Waker HD induced uptick in North American Wii U sales mirrors a similar trend in the UK, where sales of the struggling console jumped a massive 685% after the Zelda title was released. Considering the success, it seems likely that Nintendo will now fully embrace their late arrival to the HD remake scene, and get to work bringing other popular GameCube titles to their latest console.
At this time I’d like to offer the following two suggestions for potential Wii U remakes: Eternal Darkness HD and Chibi-Robo HD.
While the 200% spike in Wii U sales is certainly good news, it is somewhat tempered by the fact that the console’s sales had pretty much flatlined prior to the September price cut. Between April and July sales of the Wii successor were said to be a paltry 160K in North America. We don’t have any official August numbers to compare it to, however, rumors/speculation at NeoGAF point to September sales being somewhere around 93K — which is hardly anything to get excited about.
With that said, hopefully this is the start of a positive trend for both the Wii U and Nintendo. I’d love nothing more than for the console to find a viable niche in the market.
Published: Oct 20, 2013 12:15 pm